This is a small guide on How to fix “not starting portmapper is not running … (warning)” in Debian or Kali Linux.
Fixing “not starting portmapper is not running … (warning)”:
In most Kali or Debian installation users see this warning while
booting their system. There’s two ways to fix this, it is up to the
readers which one they choose.
Solution 1: Disable nfs-common service from startup using chkconfig
If you look into
rpcbind
script, it says that it
replaces portmapper service. In my mind, there must be some dependencies
somewhere that causes this warning message to appear.
The main two services used by
rpcbind
are as follows:
- NFS (Network File System or
nfs-common
)
- NIS (Network Information service)
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: rpcbind
# Required-Start: $network $local_fs
# Required-Stop: $network $local_fs
# Default-Start: S 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: RPC portmapper replacement
# Description: rpcbind is a server that converts RPC (Remote
# Procedure Call) program numbers into DARPA
# protocol port numbers. It must be running in
# order to make RPC calls. Services that use
# RPC include NFS and NIS.
Of these two it seems
nfs-common
causes the most issues, so we are just going to disable that.
If you don’t use NFS functionality right now then you can disable NFS at startup.
First of all install
chkconfig
application.
apt-get install chkconfig -y
Now use the following command to list
nfs-common
service, it’s runlevel and dependencies.
chkconfig -l nfs-common --deps
As you can see from the screenshot below, it’s dependencies are
$portmap
and
$time
.
Note: Use
chkconfig -l servicename --deps
to find out dependencies for any services. This is particularly useful when you have vague idea on what you’re after.
If you are happy with the findings and want to remove it from startup, issue the following command
chkconfig --del nfs-common
From the output, your can see
nfs-common
is now disabled from run-levels.
In case you’ve found that this is causing more trouble than actually fixing, (i.e.
nfs-common
being used by another service and now you’re getting errors), you can
revert your change back easily. To revert your changes back, use the
following command:
chkconfig --add nfs-common
Again, from the screenshot below, you can see
nfs-common
is back in startup with exactly the same run levels as before.
Then reboot. Next time you shouldn’t see that warning anymore.
A similar problem with Pulse Audio If you also have pulseaudio
warning during boot time, If you have pulseaudio warning during Kali or
Debian Linux during boot up then follow this guide Fixing PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions … (warning) in Kali Linux and Debian.
Solution 2: Enabling rpcbind defaults
I was notified that this is not the best solution and it enables
unnecessary services to load at startup and makes your system
vulnerable. However, if you’re not too worried about that, then go ahead
…
By
loading rpcbind defaults and enabling them, you can fix this
easily. Open up a terminal and type in the following two commands,
update-rc.d rpcbind defaults
update-rc.d rpcbind enable
That’s it, Next time you shouldn’t see that warning anymore.
If you also have pulseaudio warning during boot time, Fixing PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions … (warning) in Kali Linux and Debian.
Portmap
The
portmapper (rpc.portmap or just portmap, or rpcbind) is an
Open Network Computing Remote Procedure Call (ONC RPC) service that runs on network nodes that provide other ONC RPC services.
Version 2 of the port mapper protocol maps ONC RPC program
number/version number pairs to the network port number for that version
of that program. When an ONC RPC server is started, it will tell the
port mapper, for each particular program number/version number pair it
supports for a particular transport protocol (TCP or UDP), what port
number it is using for that particular program number/version number
pair on that transport protocol. Clients wishing to make an ONC RPC call
to a particular version of a particular ONC RPC service must first
contact the port mapper on the server machine to determine the actual
TCP or UDP port to use.
Versions 3 and 4 of the protocol, called the rpcbind protocol, map a
program number/version number pair, and an indicator that specifies a
transport protocol, to a transport-layer endpoint address for that
program number/version number pair on that transport protocol.
The port mapper service always uses TCP or UDP port 111; a fixed port
is required for it, as a client would not be able to get the port
number for the port mapper service from the port mapper itself.
The port mapper must be started before any other RPC servers are started.
Example portmap instance
This shows the different programs and their versions, and which ports
they use. For example, it shows that NFS is running, both version 2 and
3, and can be reached at TCP port 2049 or UDP port 2049, depending on
what transport protocol the client wants to use, and that the mount
protocol, both version 1 and 2, is running, and can be reached at UDP
port 644 or TCP port 645, depending on what transport protocol the
client wants to use.
$ rpcinfo -p
program vers proto port
100000 2 tcp 111 portmapper
100000 2 udp 111 portmapper
100003 2 udp 2049 nfs
100003 3 udp 2049 nfs
100003 4 udp 2049 nfs
100003 2 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 3 tcp 2049 nfs
100003 4 tcp 2049 nfs
100024 1 udp 32770 status
100021 1 udp 32770 nlockmgr
100021 3 udp 32770 nlockmgr
100021 4 udp 32770 nlockmgr
100024 1 tcp 32769 status
100021 1 tcp 32769 nlockmgr
100021 3 tcp 32769 nlockmgr
100021 4 tcp 32769 nlockmgr
100005 1 udp 644 mountd
100005 1 tcp 645 mountd
100005 2 udp 644 mountd
100005 2 tcp 645 mountd
100005 3 udp 644 mountd
100005 3 tcp 645 mountd
Thanks for reading.
Note: This surely fixed my problem (I don’t use
NFS), however, I am interested to know if this fixed your problem as
well. Let me know, leave a comment. Thanks.